Three candidates in running for Winsted school superintendent post

JASON SIEDZIK

Published
12:00 am EDT, Friday, March 25, 2011

WINSTED -- Board of Education chair Kathy O'Brien remarked during the board's Thursday night special meeting that she had placed two agenda items on the docket in case the superintendent search committee had not found any suitable candidates.

That will not be a problem, according to committee chair Christine Royer.

The committee met earlier Thursday, discussing the three applicants for the position. However, Royer expressed concerns that the candidates were unaware the position will be part-time in the next budget.

"We had some good applicants," Royer said. "One of them was pretty stellar."

At this point, the committee has yet to interview any of the candidates, as Royer said "it was putting the cart before the horse" to do so without verifying their credentials first. All three candidates checked out, though, and according to Winsted superintendent of schools Blaise Salerno, board finance director Paul Petit would be amenable to cutting his job -- currently part-time, but scheduled to jump to full-time in the new budget proposal -- to 30 hours per week if more hours were needed for a superintendent.

"The elephant in the room is the budget," said O'Brien. "We know what we asked for."

The proposal does not account for an early start for the superintendent; preliminary discussions, which saw the board cut the superintendent post to half-time, also saw the Board of Education ponder having the new superintendent start as soon as June to allow for a transition period. James DiVita asked if the board's "intent" was for the superintendent to instead start in July, only to be told the board did not have any specific intent quite yet.

"We just need to have time to get it done," said Royer.

Richard Dutton backed up the committee's readiness to only ensure the candidates were still interested in the job, stating that "we are at the level when we need to find out if the three applicants are aware it's part-time." However, if the board does want to hire a new superintendent to start in the current fiscal year, financial questions will be a concern.

"One thing we certainly don't want to do is go over budget this year," O'Brien said.